Interview With Frictional Games – Amnesia

Frictional Games the developers of the horror Penumbra series recently revealed the title of their next project – Amnesia : The Dark Descent which I wrote about earlier. For this special event I interviewed the developers about their next title.

2. What can you tell us about the upcoming game Amnesia and how would you compare it to the Penumbra series gameplay/engine wise ?

Thomas: One could say that Amnesia is a sort of progression from Penumbra. Many of the core gameplay elements have been taken from Penumbra and then refined in Amnesia. This is stuff like the physical interaction system, the way which we design our levels, and so on. Anyone who has played Penumbra will feel right at home when starting Amnesia. What really makes Amnesia different from Penumbra gameplay wise (apart from story and settings) is were our focus have been this time. These are the main areas:

1) To make the player the protagonist. What this means is that the player should to the extent possible be in the shoes of the character he/she is playing as. We will not have any sort of cut scenes, there will be very little text feedback (like descriptions) and the player should be in control from start to finish with no time jumps or anything like that. We feel that this will increase the immersion and emotions experienced during gameplay.